


too long in the wind

by jdphoenix



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Season/Series 02, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-30
Updated: 2017-06-30
Packaged: 2018-11-21 08:01:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11353245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdphoenix/pseuds/jdphoenix
Summary: There’s nothing he’s done she didn’t ask him to do.





	too long in the wind

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the song "Loving Arms."

She’s clean. She’s been clean for ages. The water washed away the sand and dust and blood, but she didn’t turn it off. She’s just standing beneath the spray as it steadily cools, allowing her mind to flow like the water. Thoughts and emotions trickle away, swirling in an endless cacophony. Her ears play tricks on her, mixing the whining from the pipes with echoing screams. Her breath grows shallow. Her fingernails drag at the smooth wall of the cubicle. Beneath her, the water spirals down into darkness, into the endless nothingness of the sea, vast and consuming like ten thousand years of isolation.

Warm hands shock her back into her own body. A solid chest presses against her back. The clothes he’s wearing cling to his skin and hers. He reaches around her to shut off the water and then wraps that arm around her shoulders. His lips press above her ear, murmuring quiet reassurances that all is well.

It’s not, not with that storm hovering at the edges of her consciousness, waiting for its moment to consume her, but with his arms anchoring her, she just might believe the lie.

When she starts shivering, he pulls her from the narrow stall, wraps a towel around her, and walks her gently back into the captain’s quarters where he sets her on the edge of the narrow bed. They’re the finest rooms on the ship, naturally, but he’s already promised they will have better soon, once he’s contacted his worshipers.

A violent shiver having nothing at all to do with temperature runs through her. She knows who his worshipers are. It should make her feel sick, but it only leaves her feeling empty.

“Jemma.” His fingertips brush along her cheek, down to her jaw, tipping her head up so that he can look into her eyes. His face is young, only a few years older than her, but his eyes… They’re ancient. “Are you well?”

Ancient and concerned. The warmth in them pierces her.

She tips her head into his touch and lifts a hand to grip his. His palm is smooth. The limp that slowed him on the planet is long gone. “You are,” she says.

He flinches and she’s immediately sorry. She didn’t mean it as an accusation, only idle curiosity.

He drops to his haunches, putting himself beneath her. “I thought you would be pleased.”

Reassurances catch in her throat. _I am_ jackknifes into _so did I_ and she isn’t sure which is true so she says neither, only grips his hand tighter because no matter which it is, she doesn’t want him any less.

She knew he would stop SHIELD—not _her_ SHIELD, not Coulson and May and Fitz and all the rest—but Bobbi and Mack and their people. He swore to her he would kill them for banishing her to that place. So it isn’t as though she was surprised when they came through the portal and he attacked the agents who tried to hold them. It’s only…

(She closes her eyes and sees faces melting away like sand dragged out to sea; sees Calderon, who bragged about shooting Skye, crumple to a pile of steaming bones in a SHIELD uniform; sees Ann weeping over his remains and staring at her with blatant accusation.)

She reaches out to touch his face, his whole, unblemished face. He leans into her fingertips as though to savor the moment. She wonders if he’s thinking she might leave him after all she’s seen him do today. She lets her fingers drift into his hair, allowing her touch to say what she can’t make into words.

There’s nothing he’s done she didn’t ask him to do. And it’s not as though he was wrong to do so. Those people were the enemy, his and hers alike. If she had tried, asked them to understand that she survived an un-survivable 0-8-4 and returned with a soulmate who is everything they feared Coulson to be, what then?

She knows what then and she can’t be sorry to have avoided it.

“You are not afraid?” he asks.

She lets go of his hand so that she can cup his face between her palms. She wants to be certain he understands this. “Yes,” she says, “of losing you.” She always knew what he was; the things he did today don’t change that.

He crumples. It happens slowly, like watching a precariously balanced pile of papers begin to tip. First his eyes shut, then his expression seems to soften into blankness, and then his shoulders bend until his head is resting against her knees.

She curls her fingers in his hair, smiling to herself. Their first meeting ended much like this. She really was afraid of him then, so surprised to find another living person on the planet. She tried to keep him at bay and when he touched her cheek…

She never imagined it would be like that. Growing up, her parents and counselors warned her how disorienting it would be when her soul met its match. At the Academy the warnings changed. SHIELD has secrets, ones which could easily be shared with unvetted individuals during the bonding. Not only that, but the sudden shock can leave even the most experienced field agent momentarily vulnerable.

Jemma wasn’t momentarily vulnerable. She was knocked to her knees and would have gone farther without him to catch her. He hasn’t said as much, but she thinks it might have been hours before she was able to move again. This was no brief sharing of memories, but a flood of pain and loneliness she can’t believe any single person could endure.

But he has. Somehow, some way, her soulmate has survived it. And she is so, so grateful he has.

A knock sounds at the door. Her heart makes a half-hearted attempt at fear, but the emotion is too far away, too disconnected from the bond. That’s all she has room for anymore.

Alveus kisses her thigh, her hands, her forehead on the way to his feet. He makes no effort to cover her, though she’s only wearing the soft towel from the bathroom. The man who enters doesn’t seem bothered by her state of undress. The prolonged stare he fixes on her remains on her face, as though to commit it to memory, and then he’s back to smiling at Alveus. They all do that, the Gifteds who, as it so happens, were taking over the ship when the two of them found their way home. They were afraid at first, but once they saw what he was capable of, they bent to his authority gladly.

“This is Lincoln Campbell,” Alveus says, “he’s a doctor. He’ll see to your injuries.”

“I’m fine,” she says for the thousandth time but, as before, Alveus doesn’t listen. She really isn’t badly injured. She suffered a few bumps and scrapes on the planet and a few more in the chaos of their return, but it’s nothing to worry over.

“I summoned him especially to tend you.” Alveus nods once to Dr. Campbell before heading for the door. “I will return soon.”

Jemma watches the door after it’s closed. She’s still getting used to being separated from him after his constant presence during her weeks on the planet. Though she’ll never be sorry to be back, she doesn’t like this part of returning to Earth so much.

Dr. Campbell approaches while she’s preoccupied. She’s aware of him studying her, carefully angling his head to see through the loose opening of the towel without daring to ask she expose more, but ignores him until she’s ready.

“Why?” she asks. There’s no telling when Alveus will be back and no point in waiting.

It takes the doctor a moment to realize what she means, but when he does he smiles. “Skye,” he says. “I can tell you about Skye.”

While he dresses the few injuries that warrant it, he tells her all she’s missed regarding Skye’s adjustment to her powers and Afterlife and even Skye’s mother. It’s a lot to take in, but it’s good. Not just the reassurance that Skye is alive despite what Calderon said, but the distraction. Lincoln’s—he sheepishly insists that she call him by his first name, saying that since she calls his soulmate by hers, she should do the same for him—story is, for the most part, so wholly separate from Alveus and the planet that it helps her to focus. She’s still wrapped in the bond, but it’s easier to find her bearings now she has something else to focus on.

When Alveus returns, long after the sun has set, she feels more herself than she has since the planet. The smile that lights up her face when she sees him is more real, more present than any before and it shows in his reaction. He comes to her immediately, wrapping her in his arms to stare in wonder.

“Am I to assume you enjoyed Lincoln’s company?”

“Very much,” she says.

After talk of Skye, when Jemma felt well enough to dress, the conversation turned to their mutual interest in medicine and she was able to compare her own fumbling knowledge with his careful study. It was an enlightening conversation and reminded her of happier days spent brushing up on her skills with Trip.

She wraps her arms around him in turn. He fits more comfortably against her now, his rough edges having been smoothed by his earlier healing. Whatever her feelings on that might once have been, his health takes priority. She can’t be sorry for Calderon, but she won’t be sorry for the others who perished to restore Alveus.

“But I missed yours more,” she says.

He bends, his smile meeting hers in a kiss that warms her to her toes. She still misses her friends and she fears he will find only betrayal when they reach his worshipers, but for now all that matters—all that ever truly matters—is the two of them, together and whole.

 


End file.
